Hold onto your hat - this is a complicated one I’m not even sure I can convey. I have just read one of those brain bruising Buddhist academic papers about two ideas that I realised were muddled together years ago and - as always - it’s great when someone else says yes - this is a muddly subject. Phew! - so it wasn’t me being dense.
The two ideas translated into English are Ground Consciousness and just the Ground. The first one, ground consciousness, grew out of the Buddhist problem of if there is no enduring seperate self what is it that is reborn lifetime after lifetime? And for that matter, how also do we account for our personalities that appear to continue more or less the same throughout our life? After a lot of debate the idea emerged that consciousness has two levels to it. Top level is information coming through our senses and twirling in our mind triggers a consciousness that is momentary and dependent on whatever triggered it. So I see you and am conscious of you as long as you are around or in my thoughts. Bottom level, at the depths of my unconscious, are all sorts of habit patterns that completely condition my thoughts, emotions and behaviours. These were created by past karma and every time I act from them, more karma is created. So the way I see you is dependent on this deeper level of consciousness - it colours and distorts my perception of reality. This is my ground consciousness.
OK - not so difficult. Common sense really.
The second idea of the ground is where it gets more complicated and ‘spiritual’. Here the idea is that the ultimate reality of the universe and also each individual is a pure awareness that has three indivisible qualities. It is empty, cognisant and compassionate. Here empty means an infinite capacity to bring forms into being, cognisant means it is aware of itself and compassionate means - well just what it says. When we are ignorant of this we are unhappily ensconced within samsara and when we know it fully we have become a buddha. (Hooray!)
So how do these two get muddled together. Well the first problem is that they are both called ‘ground’ and if you forget to put in ‘consciousness’ then who knows which one is being talked about? Second, sometimes the ground (just ground) is said to be the foundation of both samsara and nirvana. Meaning that awareness acts as the basis for both the unhappiness of samsara or the joy of nirvana depending on our choices. When the unhappiness side alone is mentioned - that the ground is the basis of our unhappiness, then it sounds identical to the ground consciousness which does the same thing. This is the really confusing one. Third, what happens to the ground consciousness when it is no longer a great mass of karmic habits, when we have meditated so much that this bank of horrors has been entirely emptied out? Does it at that moment reveal that it was really the ground all along if only we could see it? That consciousness coloured by greed, aversion and ignorance, once these are let go of, becomes known for what it really is - a spacious awareness shot through with love?
I'm going for this one!
NW. 6 September 2023
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